Company cheesed off at Apple, CBS over Mighty Mouse mark

A Maryland company called Man & Machine has filed a lawsuit against Apple and …

A Maryland company called Man & Machine, Inc. has taken a crack at the well-loved (*cough*) Apple Mighty Mouse. Yesterday, the company filed suit against Apple and TV network CBS in Maryland District Court, alleging trademark infringement related to use of the "Mighty Mouse" trademark. Why this seemingly curious pairing between Apple and CBS? Why, we'll tell you.

As it turns out, Man & Machine (M&M) makes a waterproof mouse, called the Mighty Mouse, which was marketed and sold roughly a year and a half before Apple released its own version. M&M applied for a trademark for the name, and believes that Apple is infringing on the mark by selling a similar product with the same name. M&M does, however, neglect to mention in the suit that the application arrived three years after the product was first released. The company is worried that consumers will confuse the two products and hurt its business, and wants Apple to stop using the name.

Apple's use of the Mighty Mouse name is also the reason CBS is named as a defendant in the suit. Apple's website says that the name of the mouse if licensed from CBS (which owns trademarks for the cartoon Mighty Mouse). According to the suit, however, CBS filed for a Mighty Mouse trademark related to computer peripherals after M&M had started selling its own product. As a result, M&M believes that CBS' application is invalid (being over a cartoon and all, and not a computer-related device), which means CBS can't license the trademark to Apple.

I'm definitely not a trademark lawyer, but it seems like M&M's argument here is a halfway reasonable one. Apple definitely got beaten to the use of the name, so I think the questions here are whether or not the two products are easily confused, or whether Apple knew about the other Mighty Mouse. It wouldn't be surprising to see Apple trying to handle this one in its usual quiet fashion. Perhaps it might encourage M&M to change the name of its product with a small "donation." And by small donation, I mean suitcases filled with $20 bills.